Financing constraints, irreversibility, and investment dynamics

We develop a model of an industry with many heterogeneous firms that face both financing constraints and irreversibility constraints. We use this model to examine the cyclical behavior of aggregate fixed investment, variable capital investment, and output in the presence of persistent idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks. Our model yields three main results. First, the effect of the irreversibility constraint on fixed capital investment is reinforced by the financing constraint. Second, the effect of the financing constraint on variable capital investment is reinforced by the irreversibility constraint. Finally, the interaction between the two constraints is key for explaining why input inventories and material deliveries of US manufacturing firms are so volatile and procyclical, and also why they are highly asymmetrical over the business cycle.     

Disappearing internal capital markets: Evidence from diversified business groups in Korea

This paper examines how the onset of a financial crisis affects the operation of internal capital markets among firms within a diversified business group. We find that active internal capital markets within Korean business groups (chaebols) attenuate the financial constraints of the group-affiliated firms, allowing them to make efficient capital allocations during the early 1990s. However, these markets barely function after the financial crisis of 1997. Instead, we observe public debt markets serving as a substitute for internal capital markets. Our results suggest that chaebol firms’ coordinated attempts to achieve healthier financial structures in the wake of the crisis have taken place at the expense of investment efficiency.     

Mandatory CSR disclosure,monitoring and investment efficiency: evidence from China

This study investigates the effect of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure on firms’ investment efficiency in China. Using the CSR regulation that mandates a group of listed firms to disclose stand‐alone CSR reports after 2008 as a natural experiment, we find that firms subject to the mandatory CSR regulation have decreased investment inefficiency subsequent to the mandate, especially in cases of overinvestment. This effect is more pronounced for firms with a control‐ownership wedge, state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), and firms having lower institutional ownership. Further analyses find that the reduction of overinvestment is much more significant in industries with high pollution and that the reduction in investment is not due to the CSR spending siphoning off capital used in other projects. We argue that mandatory corporate social responsibility disclosure improves monitoring over firms in China, especially when firms are characterised as having severe agency problems.     

The role of parent firms in business groups’ internal capital markets

Using a unique dataset of unconsolidated financial statements, we investigate the investment and financing policies of parent firms in South Korea's business groups over the period 2003–2016. Parent firms add to their equity-stake holdings substantially each year to support affiliated firms’ capital expenditures. Parent firms finance their equity-stake investment primarily with external funds. These tendencies are more pronounced if parents sit high in the pyramidal chain or are central to controlling other group firms and if parents belong to large business groups. Overall, parent firms prioritize their role as capital raisers and distributors for affiliated firms, and business groups’ internal capital markets are supported by external finance.     

How Does Being Public Affect Firm Investment? Further Evidence from China

What role does the stock market play in the allocation of capital? Few studies have examined how being public affects firm investment in emerging markets. This study fills this gap by comparing investment behavior in public and private Chinese firms over the period 2004–2010. We find an overall improved capital allocation of public firms relative to private firms in China. By disentangling the financial constraints effect from the agency effect, we show that public firms are less likely to underinvest when there is cash flow insufficiency and more likely to overinvest when there is free cash flow. We conclude that both effects coexist and that whether or not being public improves investment behavior depends on the net effect of loosening financial constraints and worsening agency conflicts. Further examination shows that financial information plays a limited role in these effects, implying that the association between being public and firm investment may not be attributed to information asymmetry but, rather, institutional arrangement in China.     

Institutional investors’ site visits and corporate employment decision-making

This study examines the effect of institutional investors’ site visits on corporate employment decision-making. Using a unique dataset of corporate site visits (CSVs) to the listed firms in China, we find that CSVs are associated with less labor investment inefficiency. The effect is more pronounced in firms with lower information quality, worse corporate governance, and severe financial constraints. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns. Further analysis suggests that labor investment inefficiency leads to lower future performance. Overall, our results are consistent with the view that CSVs improve information quality, corporate governance, and access to finance, which in turn, mitigates inefficient labor investment.     

Business groups in China

We investigate whether business groups in China act as internal capital markets, in an environment that is characterized by a high level of government intervention, a weak legal system, and an underdeveloped financial market. We study how institutional factors, such as the ultimate owner and level of market development, shape the role of these business groups. We find that business groups help member firms overcome constraints in raising external capital, and that the internal capital market within a business group is more likely to be an alternative financing channel among state-owned firms than among private firms. We also find that the internal capital market is more likely to help those affiliated firms which are private, local government owned relative to those owned by central government, or located in regions with a well-developed institutional environment. We present evidence of the role of business groups in risk sharing among affiliated firms, but find that business group affiliation has no impact on firm accounting performance. This study sheds new light on the theory of the firm and its boundaries, and provides a better understanding of China's rapidly growing economy.     

Investment and financing constraints in China: Does working capital management make a difference?

We use a panel of over 116,000 Chinese firms of different ownership types over the period 2000–2007 to analyze the linkages between investment in fixed and working capital and financing constraints. We find that those firms characterized by high working capital display high sensitivities of investment in working capital to cash flow (WKS) and low sensitivities of investment in fixed capital to cash flow (FKS). We then construct and analyze firm-level FKS and WKS measures and find that, despite severe external financing constraints, those firms with low FKS and high WKS exhibit the highest fixed investment rates. This suggests that an active management of working capital may help firms to alleviate the effects of financing constraints on fixed investment.     

Internal capital markets,corporate investment,and the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Korean business groups

This paper examines whether the investment of Korean business group (“chaebol”) affiliated firms behaved differently from that of non-chaebol firms in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. I show that chaebol firms cut back investment to a lesser degree than similar non-chaebol firms. Chaebol firms with higher-than-industry-median market-to-book ratios invested more and experienced less decline in their stock prices, while I do not find such relationships for non-chaebol firms. This paper provides evidence that chaebol internal capital markets helped mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic on firm investment and value.     

A balancing act: Managing financial constraints and agency costs to minimize investment inefficiency in the Chinese market

Using a large panel of Chinese listed firms over the period 1998–2014, we document strong evidence of investment inefficiency, which we explain through a combination of financing constraints and agency problems. Specifically, we argue that firms with cash flow below (above) their optimal level tend to under- (over-)invest as a consequence of financial constraints (agency costs). Furthermore, focusing on under-investing firms, we highlight that the sensitivities of abnormal investment to free cash flow rise with traditionally used measures of financing constraints, while for over-investing firms, the sensitivities increase with a wide range of firm-specific measures of agency costs.     

Internal Capital Markets, Bank Borrowing, and Financing Constraints: Evidence from Belgian Firms

In Belgium, financial and industrial groupings play a crucial role in the accumulation and allocation of capital in the economy. In this paper, it is hypothesized that Belgian firms for which investment is partly financed on an internal capital market, will not be subject to financing constraints to the same extent as firms which have to borrow from banks. Moreover, it is hypothesized that firms belonging to a group, transfer internal surpluses of funds to other group members by investing in financial assets. An empirical analysis confirms the first hypothesis, but rejects the second hypothesis.     

中国上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性估计

企业投资对资本成本的敏感性是识别货币政策利率传导渠道是否畅通以及IS曲线斜率的重要参数。本文基于新古典投资模型框架,使用2004-2017年中国上市公司非平衡面板数据,估计了中国上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性,并侧重检验了融资约束对企业投资资本成本敏感性的影响。估计结果显示:(1)上市企业投资的加权资本成本弹性显著为负,且已具有较强敏感性(长期弹性系数为-0.16～-0.27),价格型货币政策工具的传导条件在上市公司投资环节正逐渐具备 ;(2)对加权资本成本的结构性估计显示,企业投资主要对债务资本成本的变动较为敏感且系数显著为负,而对股权资本成本的变动敏感程度较低且不稳定;(3)与传统观点相反的是,非国有控股上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性显著低于国有控股上市企业;较强的融资约束是导致非国有控股上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性较低的重要原因,应重视民营经济面临较强的融资约束对价格型货币政策工具传导机制的负面影响。本文的研究为中国货币政策框架的转型以及价格型货币政策传导机制的有效性提供了微观经验证据的支持。     

Financial Constraints, Debt Capacity, and the Cross-section of Stock Returns

Building on a model of corporate investment under collateral constraints, we develop and test a hypothesis on the differential effect of debt capacity on stock returns across financially constrained and unconstrained firms. Consistent with the hypothesis, we find that debt capacity is a significant determinant of stock returns only in the cross-section of financially constrained firms, after controlling for beta, size, book-to-market, leverage, and momentum. The findings suggest that cross-sectional differences in corporate investment behavior arising from financial constraints, predicted by theories of imperfect capital markets and supported by empirical evidence, are reflected in the stock returns of manufacturing firms.     

A flight to Q? Firm investment and financing in Korea before and after the 1997 financial crisis

We examine investment behavior among exchange-listed Korean manufacturing firms before and after the 1997 financial crisis using firm-level panel data. Starting with the standard Q-theory of investment, we augment it by allowing for a sales accelerator and the possibility of cash constraints, categorizing firms based on their age, size and affiliation to an industrial conglomerate (i.e., chaebol). We find that Tobin’s Q is a robust determinant of investment in a pooled sample for 1992–2001, but that it became more important for small firms and less important for chaebol-affiliated firms after the crisis. Investment by chaebol firms also became more sensitive to the availability of internal cash balances after the crisis. We interpret this as reflecting a shift in the Korean economy to a stronger market orientation after the crisis and to a business climate in which the quality of potential projects became more important relative to capital market imperfections in determining the destination of investment funds.     

Financial constraints on investment in an emerging market crisis

We investigate whether capital market imperfections constrain investment during an emerging market financial crisis. Both large currency devaluations and banking sector failures characterize recent crises. Although a currency devaluation should increase exporters’ competitiveness and investment, a failing banking system may limit credit to these firms. Foreign-owned firms, which may have greater access to overseas financing but otherwise face the same investment prospects, provide an ideal control group for determining the effect of liquidity constraints. We test for liquidity constraints in Indonesia following the 1997 East Asian financial crisis, a period when the issuance of new domestic credit shrank rapidly. Exporters’ value added and employment increased after the crisis, suggesting that they profited from the devaluation and had sufficient cash flow to finance more workers. However, only exporters with foreign ownership increased their capital significantly. Our results suggest that liquidity constraints greatly retarded domestic-owned manufacturing firms’ ability to take advantage of improved terms of trade. Specifically, compared to foreign-owned exporters they had resembled before the crisis, after the crisis domestic-owned exporters had more than 20% lower employment and capital and more than 40% lower value added and materials usage.     

Capital market frictions and human capital investment: Evidence from workplace safety around regulation SHO

This paper examines the effect of capital market frictions on firms’ workplace safety. Using Regulation SHO as a natural experiment, we find a significant increase in work-related injury rates of pilot firms. The effect is stronger for firms in more competitive industries and with high financial constraints, and weaker for firms whose employees have high negotiating power and with good corporate governance. Further tests suggest that managers’ myopia shifts their focus away from investments in workplace safety when workplace safety is not related to firm performance. Overall, the results highlight how capital market frictions affect firms’ investment in human capital.     

The Wealth Effects of Capital Investment Decisions: An Empirical Comparison of Korean Chaebol and Non‐Chaebol Firms

Abstract:   This paper investigates the capital investment decisions of Korean firms and their impact on shareholder wealth. Overall, we find positive abnormal returns surrounding the announcements of 697 cases of investment projects during the period 1992–1999. This paper also finds that the investment decisions of business group ( chaebol ‐affiliated) firms do not increase shareholder wealth, while the capital investment decisions of non‐ chaebol firms generate significantly positive abnormal returns. The multivariate tests provide consistent evidence that the announcement effects for chaebol firms are lower than for non‐ chaebol firms, after growth opportunities, investment size and firm size are controlled for. The findings support the view that the organizational structure of Korean chaebols creates an incentive for managers to make non‐value maximizing capital investment decisions.     

信用风险缓释凭证对企业投资行为的影响——基于融资约束中介效应的实证研究

2018年以来,作为债券融资支持工具的信用风险缓释凭证(CRMW)在我国得到了快速发展。本文采用基于倾向得分匹配的双重差分模型(PSM-DID),利用中国企业数据检验了CRMW产品对企业投资行为的影响。结果显示,我国信用风险缓释凭证的发行促进了非上市企业投资,并且这种促进作用对于融资约束较强的企业更为显著。本文还对CRMW产品通过缓解融资约束促进企业投资的渠道进行了检验,结果发现,CRMW产品对企业融资的促进作用主要体现在信贷融资渠道而非债券渠道。本文结论有助于深化对中国当前资本市场中信用风险缓释凭证的作用效果与作用机制的解读,为政策制定者利用该产品解决民营企业融资难、融资贵的问题提供了更充分的决策参考依据。     

State control,access to capital and firm performance

We study the effect of state control on capital allocation and investment in China, where the government screens prospective stock issuers. We find that state firms are more likely to obtain government approval to conduct seasoned equity offerings than non-state firms. Further, non-state firms exhibit greater sensitivities of subsequent investment and stock performance to regulatory decisions on stock issuances than state firms. Our work suggests that state control of capital access distorts resource allocation and impedes the growth of non-state firms. We also provide robust evidence that financial constraints cause underinvestment.     

Leverage, imports, profitability, exchange rates, and capital investment: a panel data study of the textile and apparel industries 1974-1987

This paper explores the relationship between capital structure and import competition for the textile and apparel industries from 1974-1987. The level of import penetration should have an important effect on business risk and hence on financial leverage. We also examine the response of leverage to the interrelationships that may exist between import competition and three other factors: firm profitability, strength of the dollar, and investment in capital equipment.The evidence suggests that leverage for the textile firms increases with rising imports but that the effect is less marked if the imports are the result of a strengthening dollar. The textile firms also seem to have inaugurated a capital investment campaign in reaction to import competition. For apparel firms, the interrelationship between profitability and import penetration seems to have been the primary determinant of leverage.